GOP Challenges Extreme Absentee Voter Law Spreading Around the Country

Republicans are seeking to squash a voting law metastasizing through the nation that allows citizens to vote in states they have never inhabited. 

The Nebraska Supreme Court could decide the constitutionality of a state law that allows U.S. citizens living abroad who have not lived in the state—or even live in the United States—to vote in Nebraska elections. Nebraska is one of three dozen states that allow some form of this law.

The Republican National Committee has litigated what it calls ‘Never Resident” voting laws in seven states, joining local plaintiffs. A state high court ruling could put the matter on a pathway to the U.S. Supreme Court and establish a national precedent. 

“The RNC is taking this fight all the way to the Nebraska Supreme Court because Nebraska elections should be decided by Nebraska voters, period,” Ally Triolo, RNC election integrity communications director, told the Daily Signal. “This loophole allows certain people who have never lived in the state to vote, weakening the safeguards that protect election integrity. We’re fighting to close it, protect the ballot box, and uphold the law.” 

Two Nebraska voters, Jack Riggins and Pamela Dingman, who filed the complaint, were joined in the lawsuit by the RNC, arguing their votes are being diluted. 

The RNC appealed a ruling by Lancaster County District Judge Ryan Post, who upheld the state’s 2005 law. 

“A statute is presumed to be constitutional, and all reasonable doubts are resolved in favor of its constitutionality,” Post wrote in his Aug. 12 opinion. Article VI, Section 1, of the Nebraska Constitution specifies that those eligible to vote in the state must be U.S. citizens who are at least 18 and “have resided within the state and the county and voting precinct” in which they are casting a vote. 

The state law says, “A person who is the age of an elector and a citizen of the United States residing outside the United States, who has never resided in the United States, who has not registered to vote in any other state of the United States, and who has a parent registered to vote within this state shall be eligible to register to vote and vote in one county in which either one of his or her parents is a registered voter.” 

Nebraska Secretary of State Bob Evnen’s office declined to comment for this story because the matter is the subject of pending litigation. 

The Nebraska Examiner reported that state numbers show there are 116 overseas Nebraska voters registered under the law and that six of them voted in the May 12 state primary. 

But elections can come down to the slimmest margins. In 2024 in Nebraska, an election for a seat on the Denton Village Board of Trustees ended in a tie, and decided by a lottery, according to the Public Interest Legal Foundation, which tracks elections decided by a single vote or tied. According to the PILF database, 1,376 elections nationally since 1992 initially had a tie vote, and another 531 were decided by a single vote.

After the lawsuit was initially filed in June in Lancaster County District Court, Nebraska Democratic Party Chairwoman Jane Kleeb said, “Nebraska Republicans are so afraid of voters—because of their radical, failed policies—that they’re now trying to deny Americans the right to vote.” 

The lawsuits are not related to longstanding rules that allow military personnel or diplomats to vote absentee. The RNC says it strongly supports the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act, or UOCAVA.The RNC has sued over “never resident” voting laws in battleground states Arizona and Nevada; blue states such as Colorado, New Jersey, and Virginia; and the red state of Nebraska. 

In June, the Wake County Superior Court struck down a North Carolina law allowing people born overseas who never lived in the state to vote in the state’s elections. 

The Federal Voting Assistance Program lists 38 states that allow some form of voting by U.S. citizens who never lived in a state. Typically, the states allow an American residing abroad whose parent or legal guardian has a specified connection to the state to vote by absentee ballot.